After breaking my iPhone, I went to the Apple store at the local mall to assess my options for repair vs replacement. I love the Apple store. The employees are solicitous, friendly and knowledgeable. I can check out the devices IRL to see if a particular model suits me. The tech support and repair service far surpass every other major corporation I deal with.
And, in every Apple store I’ve ever visited, the energy is dynamic. They are always crowded. People are talking to each other, checking out devices, taking classes, laughing and having a good time.
It’s kind of cool.
What I noticed at this mall was that the energy and enthusiasm people had at the Apple store was on display throughout the mall, albeit to a sightly lesser extent.
I saw parents shopping with their kids – ranging from babies in carriages to teens lugging bags.
All the stores were brightly lit, clean, and pumped up with music. There were smells of good food, tasty treats, perfume and cologne wafting throughout the mall.
It almost made me want to shop. And I hate shopping – plus I didn’t need anything except a new iPhone.
When I was a teenager, we hung out at malls. They had food courts, Spencer Gifts, bookstores, clothing stores and movie theaters. Even more importantly, they were full of other teenagers. My friends worked there. Chics hung out there. We could walk around in the middle of winter, protected from the frigid cold until our friends could join us to go somewhere to eat, see a movie, play miniature golf or just hang out. Since we were all broke kids from lower class families, we didn’t buy much but we checked out all kinds of stuff we someday hoped we could afford.
I thought malls were dead.
I’ve watched videos of abandoned malls all over the country. I remember my last visits to some malls in Pittsburgh and Florida, where 90% of the stores were closed and people wandered around like zombies in dimly lit, dirty halls to get to a Sears that was going out of business.
Anything I read or heard on the news told me that Walmart, big box stores and Amazon had crushed retail malls.
Well, the mall I visited was not dead. It was jumping. People were having a good time and stores were busy.
Lately I’ve been reading a book written by an archeologist about the history of cities. She writes about the commonalities that all cities have, ranging from ancient times to present times.
She shows how concerns about water, food, housing, infrastructure, sewage, roads, garbage college, work, policing and government were (and are) present in every city.
So is shopping.
People like to buy things. People like to own things. People like choice, variety, novelty and status purchases.
Even though online shopping has certainly made a HUGE impact in retail shopping, I have to wonder if perhaps the mall I visited and others like it, will thrive precisely because of the community experience they provide. They enable people to connect with each other, feel that energy and enjoy the buzz of the marketplace.
Hell, even I enjoyed it. As much as I despise shopping and consumerism, it was emerging being around nice stuff and happy people.